J.R.

Steve. You could be breaking much harder if you wanted to Both my relatively light Blackbird engined cars cook the rear pads and I have found greenstuff to be the worst. I ran standard pads at croix last week (very hard circuit on brakes) and in the 1/2 hour endurance arce at lydden (which I won) 😬 😬 and they have not degraded at all and show much less wear. Next step is to try the cheapest £5.50 patterm pads that I have. When Lol tried the break ducting initially it melted ☹️ on the mark 2 set up the rear pads did not get up to temperature & he had to go back to standard ones so ducting obviously is of benefit on the heavier Vauxhall car

Gareth. Your quote "I have the technology to disable immobilisers and reprogram them" has been read by me at a very opportune time! I have a nearly new Caterham blackbird (injection engine) we tested at Croix this weekend in preparation for an endurance race next saturday. Unfortunately I lost the only immobiliser key after the tset session and it will cost around £720 for a new ecu & keys from honda. One big problem is they wont sell them without V5 for motorcycle & other documentation which I dont have. The other is that even with the documentation I wont get the bits in time for the race. Is there anything that you could do to help? - I could trailer the vehicle up and am quite competent on vehicle wiring and electronics but dont have the test equipment for passive chipped immobilisers. I would of course expect to pay, - do you fancy a challenge ?

Car will be at Croix en Ternois on Sunday 6th April for passenger rides.

Mark. I have some 70's alloy rims that were fitted to my first 7 I am fairly sure that they are cosmic but they carry no markings. They are 5.5 J * 13" and are ford stud pattern. They are NOT the cosmic rims that I recall fitted to escorts etc with the black painted spokes with alloy exposed on the ground edges. They are alloys in a similar "genre" to the wolfrace wheel of the period but with radiused curves rather than flat faces. also with triangular holes rather than the square slots of wolfrace. Not a very good description I know but does this sound like what you want? I have never seen another set of these but lots of people comment "my car had these in the 70's!.

Now 200 miles and climbing, what a rush 😬 Will be at Lydden tomorrow (Saturday)

Car will also hopefully be at the East Sussex meeting on thursday at the six bells chiddingly.

Arnie Before you go too far on the wiring CSA just try turning the engine over with the coils disconnected or plug caps off to rule out starting advance. Lots of people think a cable MUST be a certain size for current (which is true) but the length and connections along the way are more important. The wiring runs are quite short on the car, - look how thin the wire in a 35 amp fuse is to see how small a wire can be used over a short distance. If you think there is voltage drop check it with a meter in the way I showed you last time. P.S. Chris H chuffed with aeroscreens.

Caterham Blackbird fuel injected built by Paul Harvey (creator of Cat blackbird) for 2002 Nurburgring 24 hour race - but unrun. SVA'd, registered & taxed December 2002. Less than 100 dry miles (now a few more as good blatting weather!) & in as new condition, stored in dehumidified garage. Looks stunning in Bahama green with black wings & nose. Usual Blackbird spec, De-Dion chassis, dry sumped, stack, tillets, JPE screen etc + fuel injection, A032R's in super soft, long range fuel tank, tall 3.2 LSD & race prepared. Ideal for endurance racing as very fuel efficient. This is one very quick car as anyone at the club track day at Lydden Hill will testify. I am reluctantly prepared to sell as it really is far too nice to race and instead I will carry on this season with my old tatty one. PRICE £24K - this is significantly less than when Caterham made the only batch of these great cars without the extras listed above Can be viewed & seen in action this Saturday at the Semsec practice day at Lydden Hill or at Croix - En Ternois on April 6th. Car located in Sussex. Serious enquiries by phone (evenings) on 01342 712763. Am away from computer most of time so will be slow to respond to any E-mail or replys to this posting. Edited by - J.R. on 26 Mar 2003 17:53:03 Edited by - J.R. on 30 Mar 2003 14:47:28

Type 9 baulk rings are far weaker (they crack from a very weak section that locates the blocker bars) and also wont fit the 4 speed box. 4 speed synchro rings were available from Ford the last time I bought them, the difficulty is finding a person at the parts counter who knows of the existence of any Ford cars before the Sierra 🙆🏻

Richard I had a similar situation 2 years ago on blatchat and findit.co.uk. Came to the conclusion that they are not the best forums for selling a Caterham, - most enquiries seemed to be collecting photos! Maybe they just wern't serious as I cant see how one could discount a perfect car from its appearance on a tiny digital photo. I took it to Stoneliegh first put it on the club stand with my mobile phone number, plenty of lookers but no calls. For the last 2 hours (it was raining!) I put in the general sale area and got a serious enquiry from a guy who went to look for a Westfileld but decided mine was much more for the money. Smashing guy - true enthusast, he gave me a deposit there and then and collected the following weekend. I am sure your car would sell at the show if it is as good as evryone says, you can also post on Blatchat etc that it can be viewed there although this didnt help me as one guy wanted me to drive it from the show to his home to view

Chelspeed. - no offence taken When we meet to buy / sell the tunnel cover we can look at a few of the left and right hand drive headlamps that I have kicking around. I have 2 sets of Galaxy headlights L&RHD where the differences in the bulb orientation and the mirroring of the masking cut off lines can be seen. I found all this out by accident by having two cars which at MOT time turned out to have LHD headlamps, one was my old seven where I had bought a replacement cibie lens (cheap!) from Redline which turned out to be LHD which we all found amusing!. I also have some very cheap 5" seven lights that I bought from a tractor shop in france which I plan to convert, my mate has already done his by rotating the bulbholder. The question to ask is does the pattern on the glass bend or cut off the beam?. I dont believe that it does as it is not a prism.

An easy and empirical way of testing any proposed aerodynamic improvements is to measure how far the car will coast in neutral from 60mph or 100mph. This should be done before and after the mod on the same stretch of road and with same wind etc. You wont be able to boast what the reduction in CD or A or CDA is but you will know that for instance changing full screen to aero improves aerodynamics by X %. This is a method used by "do-ers" rather than "thinkers" *smile*

The dip beam pattern is not created by the pattern on the glass, the pattern is there for masking the beam pattern with the tape that you removed. The dip beam pattern is a function of the shield above the bulb element and the rotation of the bulb (and hence sheild) from the horizontal. To convert left hand drive lights to right hand drive look carefully at the rotational offset of the bulb from the horizontal, if it is say 10 degrees clockwise than modify the mounting to give a location of 10 degrees anti clock wise. After this if you need to mask the lenses for continental use the maskin area will be the mirror image of what is on the lens.

You have more mail

The pedal box assembly I fitted is designed for the early (pre 90?) De -dion chassis which looks the same in that area to the live axle chassis. Fabrication skills needed because it comes without fixings or holes and has to be bronze welded or fabricated for mechanical fixings. It used the existing pedals and didnt give any more legroom but does have 2 pedal pivot shaft locations. Dont know if the part is still listed, and think that the drawings may have been lost as mine had to be specially made by arch after the first one appeared to only fit a LH drive car.

Recently registered 2 Caterham Blackbirds, one new with SVA, one 16 years old without SVA. Both got the lowest rate of road tax (under 1200cc). The old one despite (after much arguing) not needing SVA got a new registration (non Q) and doesnt need an MOt for 3 years. It doesnt look new

Anthony I have some new black 5.75" headlights (with sidelight), have never used them and would prefer to swop for chrome. E-mail me off line & remember to include your e-mail address or a contact number.

Still require either one black luke belt (with or without Caterham stitching) or one red Willans

UPDATE Have been off line this week undregoing the painfull (for me) experience of updating the computer 🙆🏻 Am back on line but have lost (cant find?) my old E-mails. From memory three of you contacted me, I think P.C. Chris Clarke and another guy who wanted 10. Could you please resend your E-mails to jrbird@waitrose.com and I will get on it as I have the batteries now. Many thanks

Chris I have one that you can have FOC, it is old but unused and came off a small diameter silencer. What ever happened to the Lotus twin cam head that you agreed to sell to me over a year ago?? I decided in the end to stop chasing you as I wasnt getting any reply, but if it is still available then I could coincide the delivery / collection to save you paying anything. Regards

I will soon have about 40 of these to get rid of, they are great for bench testing automotive or any other 12volt stuff, running cameras, microphones, powering beacons, transponders etc etc. They have Lucar terminals and measure 97mm * 48mm * 55mm. They have been on standby float charge for a couple of years and are good as new but we have to replace them every 3 years. Dont want any money (but donation to NTL if you want) - anyone want any or all of them? Could take them to Sussex or Surrey meetings if required, will only consider delivery of the whole lot (at cost). Last time a friend sold them at a car boot sale & she said they flew off the stand!

The pedal box switch can be repaired by carefully prising apart at the locking lugs with a small screwdriver. Then after finding all the bits that have dropped on the floor you can clean the contacts and reassemble to see if you did indeed find all the bits and it works I manage to get a temporary reprieve on my car with the hydraulic switch by standing as hard as I can on the brake pedal, this must partially clean the contacts as the pressure required to switch on the lights then falls within what is usually used on the road - for a while! Edited by - J.R. on 20 Jan 2003 11:46:54

Yes indeed Stock code PD01B tel 0870 264 6000 Now can anyone find them: A - cheaper than Maplin @ £9.99 inc vat B - more expensive than Demon Theives @ £57.46 inc vat ❗ (figure taken from original posting) That is some mark up

Sold the same on here about a year ago for £75. Both buyer and seller happy with price

Silly question but are you certain that you are in first gear? bike gearboxes wont go in and out of gear at standstill like a car gearbox, they need the wheels to be turning. The box may be stuck in a high gear from when the bike was dropped and you sometimes can get a false neutral between 5th and 6th gear. If you have neutral AND the neutral light before engaging gear ignore this. *cool*